OSAGE RIVER WATER: Original music video of Capps family history along the Osage River

 blog, Uncategorized  No Responses »
Feb 152017
 

Jimmy Capps posted on Facebook this lyrical music video account of generations of  his family and their life along the Osage River  since the early 1800s. Acoustic guitar and a haunting harmonica provide a simple but appropriate accompaniment to his original composition. (This is my own transcription from the video. My apologies if there are mistakes!)

Osage River Water

My people came from Tennessee in 1821,
Capps Landing on the Osage is where they made their home.
Great granddad moved to Proctor
When a ferry crossed the stream.
The sons worked the freight boats
burning wood for steam.
Floating ties down the Osage,
Trapping furs and running lines,
Fought the flu and smallpox,
The flood of ‘29

That Osage River water’s flowing in my veins
From the great Wah-Zha-Zhe and everyone between

Granddad lived in a houseboat.
Depression’s scrounged the land.
Moonshine boats, midnight floats, the lawman close at hand
My daddy fished the big lake that stops at Bagnell Dam.
Sold his fish in the town from the trunk of his sedan.
My brothers and I followed suit ‘til we all left the …
Our sons all fish in bass boats and throw away their catch.

That Osage River water’s flowing in our veins
From the mighty Wah-Zha-Zhe and everyone between

Now 30-foot go-fast boats, they scream across the lake
They leave the boats of the country folks a-rockin’ in their wake

That Osage River water’s flowing in my veins
From the mighty Wah-Zha-Zhe and everyone between

Water Tower at Ha Ha Tonka – Vintage Image

 blog, Uncategorized, Vintage Image of the Week  No Responses »
Jul 262016
 

sc431

Tower Ha Ha Tonka, Mo. “8 miles of L.C.” (probably Linn Creek)
By G. A. Moulder, Linn Creek, Mo. Unsent.

Stone Water Tower, 80 feet high, at Robert M. Snyder’s castle retreat above the Osage River.  Water was pumped from the spring far below to a tank at the top of the tower. Besides holding the water tank above the house and grounds to facilitate gravity feed to supply the water system of the castle.

This tower once held living quarters as well as a water tank at the top of the tower. Historical marker at the park says, “The first four floors were living quarters for the caretaker’s family. A large steel tank on the fifth floor held water for the estate. It’s (sic) interior burned by vandals in 1976. It was reroofed and stabilized in 1999.”‘

G. A. Moulder seems to have been a prolific professional photographer in Linn Creek in the pre-Bagnell Dam era.  While we have not identified details of his life, he did come from an established and well-respected family in Camden County. In 1896, J. W. Vincent, editor of the Linn Creek Reveille, published a series of articles based on accounts from early settlers primarily in Camden and Morgan counties.  Of the Moulder family he wrote:

The Moulder family, since the most numerous and prominent in the county, first arrived in 1837. Judge G. W. Moulder, the first of these, came to Lincoln county in 1830, and to Camden (then Pulaski) in the year named, buying a farm on the Niangua, eight miles above Linn Creek, where he lived nearly fifty years, and died in 1886.

He was one of a family of twelve children, and was afterwards joined by three brothers, Valentine, Silas and Rufus, and by two sisters, Rebecca Capps and Elizabeth Doyle, the latter of whom is still living, on Prairie Hollow, the only surviving member of her father’s family. Judge Moulder had six sons, William G., John B., A. F., Joseph C., V. P., and T. H. B., all of whom served their country during the late war.

Be sure to like Lens & Pen Press on Facebook 

And follow Lens & Pen.Press on twitter

 

Another Flood in Linn Creek circa 1920

 blog, Uncategorized, Vintage Image of the Week  No Responses »
Jul 132016
 

sc426

High Water Linn Creek Mo.
Real Photo Postcard by J. W. Farmer, Linn Creek, Mo. probably around 1920. Unsent.

The Osage could play havoc with your plans. Flooding was a regular event in Linn Creek but it didn’t seem to deter people from living there.  Floods were a dramatic and photogenic affair. Even today, a flood brings out the photographers. An obvious question comes to mind: what piece of dry ground was the photographer standing on? Perhaps he was precariously perched on another boat? It’s a great image of a watery world. Hardly a square foot of terra firma is showing!
JWVincent-p104

 

We’ve posted a number of flood scenes of Linn Creek on this blog.  Perhaps several were of a single event, but Linn Creek was hit with rising waters more than once. Despite fairly frequent incursions of the Osage into the town’s streets and homes, the editor of the city newspaper,  The Reveille, railed against building Bagnell Dam.  J.W.)Vincent understood full well that occasional spring rises were better for the community than permanent inundation of their homes and the most productive land of the river bottoms.

 

This photo (of a photo) of Joshua Williams (J.W.) Vincent is from page 104 in Damming the Osage. The caption reads:

Before coming to Missouri in 1866, J. W. Vincent’s father, J. S., had worked for Horace Greeley, fought in the Mexican War, been wounded twice by Indians, dug for gold in California, and married an Irish girl in Milwaukee. An 1889 county history classified the newspaper he founded as a “spicy journal in the interests of the Republican Party.” The son (J. W. ) bought the Reveille from his father in 1880 and edited it until his death in 1933.

Arnhold Mill Dam – NIANGUA RIVER

 blog, Uncategorized, Vintage Image of the Week  1 Response »
Jul 092016
 

sc432Arnhold Mill Dam
Real photo postcard
Note the folks in the canoe upstream from this icy dam.

George and Dorotha Arnhold bought Cleman Mill on the Niangua River in Camden County in 1878. Its scenic location, abundant game, good fishing and congenial owners attracted sportsmen from across the state. Arnhold’s Mill became an early sportsmen’s resort. Such was his popularity when George Arnhold died in 1896, sportsmen commissioned a monument, which was carved in Scotland and delivered to Versailles in 1899. More than 500 people attended the dedication ceremony. The inscription says: “Erected in the memory of Dorotha Arnhold and George Arnhold by many fishermen friends as a tribute to their unlimited generosity.” For more details about Arnhold’s Mill see Dwight Weaver’s book, History and Geography of Lake of the Ozarks, Vol. 1.

Located on the Big Niangua two miles upstream from today’s Niangua bridge, Arnhold’s Mill and the adjacent outbuildings and houses were covered by the waters of Lake of the Ozarks when Bagnell Dam closed.

DAM REMOVAL success on the #Hudson – time to remove #Lock & Dam No. 1

 blog, Uncategorized  No Responses »
Jun 132016
 

#AmericanRivers and #Riverkeepers celebrate the removal of a rusty, abandoned dam on Wynants Kill near Albany, NY. Already they see the flash of silver as herring swarm upstream to spawn.

” ‘Every dam should have an existential crisis,’ ” said John Waldman, a biology professor at Queens College, tells The Associated Press.” In Missouri, time for that crisis has come for one of those aging, inoperable and dangerous structures. We have an extensive discussion of the issues surrounding Lock and Dam No. 1, a monstrous relic, more than 100 years old, of Corps of Engineers river mismanagement on our website: (click here) Lock and Dam no. 1 on the Osage River.

04

This was taken during the 2012 drought. The river is full now and its waters barely cover the tops of the crumbling old concrete, barely held together with rusting iron and rotten wood. More than 100 years old now, Lock and Dam No. 1 serves no useful purpose for navigation or flood control, and it blocks the migration of paddlefish and endangered pallid sturgeon.

Removing Lock and Dam No. 1 would open those 80 miles of Osage River from Bagnell Dam to its junction with the Missouri River to possible spawning of both paddlefish and the endangered pallid sturgeon. Major spawning grounds of the paddlefish were destroyed by construction of Truman Dam. Per Wikipedia, the endangered pallid sturgeon, related to the sturgeon, another ancient fish (Cretaceous period), is endemic to the waters of the Missouri River system and the lower Mississippi. Like the paddlefish, its spawning grounds have been greatly diminished by river channelization and dams.  Both species are now sustained by hatcheries. The gravel bars of that last section of the wide, slow Osage River could provide both species an environment for natural spawning.

Old Linn Creek 1909 – before Bagnell Dam

 blog, Vintage Image of the Week  No Responses »
May 192016
 

sc420

“Linn Creek, Mo. Looking N. W. 1909” written in red ink. Real photo postcard, published by G. A. Moulder, Linn Creek, Mo. Unsent.

Linn Creek, seat of Camden County, here seen nestled in its valley near the Osage, seems to have been an idyllic place, especially in memory. Years later, Nellie Moulder wrote of the town drowned by Bagnell Dam in her journal:

Perhaps more than the ‘scenes’, it is the people one remembers, John McGowan, commercial fisherman of early Linn Creek, giving away more fish than he sold; E.M. Kirkham, who organized parades, programs, and picnics and became the orator when need arose; the banker’s wife, proud, haughty, often arrogant, but ever aware of children in the creek, warning them of inherent dangers; jovial Fred Moulder, who loved children, chipping and sharing slivers of ice to waiting children as he came to the ice house for needed ice in his meat counter display. D.P. Moore who loved his dog; dressed “Frank” in a little boy suit to bury him and deeded “Frank” and an acre of land as his own cemetery with a headstone for identification.

Damming the Osage, page 106

The Moulder  family was prominent in Camden County. Young (26 years old) Morgan Moore Moulder was the county’s prosecuting attorney and sought an injunction from the courts to stop construction of Bagnell Dam in the late 1920s.

Trout Glen at Ha Ha Tonka

 blog, Vintage Image of the Week  No Responses »
May 132016
 

Entitled “Trout Glen” and written in red ink “Ha ha ton ka,”  this real photo postcard was published by Jas. Bruin, Linn Creek, MO. Unsent.

sc418

Before Bagnell Dam, this spring outlet fed into the Niangua River. Springs throughout the Ozarks were stocked with several varieties of trout beginning in the late 1800s. Trout and even salmon were also dumped into streams that were too warm for their survival. Rainbows from the McCloud River in California proved to be the hardiest. In very few of these environments will they reproduce.

Robert McClure Snyder put in a small dam and a mill on this spring branch, creating a cool pool for trout. The pond was swamped by the warm muddy waters of the Osage as it backed up and spread out when Bagnell Dam closed. The loss of the trout pond was one justification for the Snyder family’s lawsuit against Union Electric.

The millstone is embedded in the concrete today as a decorative element along the path.

IMG_6369-v2

Ha Ha Tonka, Mo. Can you identify this Mystery Image?

 blog, Uncategorized, Vintage Image of the Week  1 Response »
Mar 182016
 

sc423

Real photo postcard, published by G. A. Moulder, Linn Creek, MO. Unsent. “Hahatonka, MO” pencilled on back.

We’ve gone back and forth on whether these are ruins or some natural rock formations. Obviously, the castle didn’t burn until much later than when this card was published, which we estimate to be the 19-teens or ‘20s. Does anybody know what this represents?

The Moulder family was  prominent in Linn Creek. While I haven’t precisely identified G.A. Moulder, his family had been in Camden County for decades before this photo was published. Morgan M. Moulder was the prosecuting attorney for Camden County when the dam on the Osage was under construction. He, with other town leaders, tried to stop the dam that would drown their community. The family also owned a hotel in town that, ironically, hosted corporate representatives who came to oversee construction. I

In Nellie Moulder’s memoirs of the town before the dam, she  recalled: “jovial Fred Moulder, who loved children, chipping and sharing slivers of ice to waiting children as he came to the ice house for needed ice in in his meat counter display.” (page 106, Damming the Osage)

Old Linn Creek – flooded by the Osage River

 blog, Uncategorized  1 Response »
Mar 152016
 

sc421

View of Linn Creek, Mo., written in white ink. Published by G. A. Moulder, Linn Creek, Mo. This appears to show high water on the Osage River and shows Linn Creek flooded to varying degrees.

Linn Creek was built at the junction of the Niangua and the Osage and was subject to flooding. Its hardy citizens preferred occasional floods to being fifty feet under water. The town resisted the Bagnell Dam project and fought Union Electric tooth and claw. The little county seat of Camden County would go under forty feet of water twenty years after this photo was taken when Lake of the Ozarks pooled behind Bagnell Dam. Many of the houses would be moved, some were torn down, some burned – mostly foundations were left.

Dr. Moore’s office in Linn Creek, Missouri

 blog, Uncategorized, Vintage Image of the Week  No Responses »
Mar 132016
 

sc424

Real photo postcard. No publisher.

“Dr. Moore L. C. Mo.” is written in red ink. L.C. is Linn Creek Unsent. Penciled on back, “Linn Creek, Mo.” There appear to be some political advertisements pasted in the window. Shows a horse-drawn carriage, sans horses, and a farm wagon hitched to two mules.

Someone really wanted others to know that this scene was in Linn Creek. It says so on the back and twice on the front.  Linn Creek, the seat of Camden County, in spite of being subject to periodic inundation was a thriving little burg before Bagnell Dam. Linn Creek and Tuscumbia were the last towns to have regular steamboat service on the Osage.

Does someone know who Dr. Moore was?

 

 

 Older Entries